[3.15] Crimson Bow Gladiator, RoA + Puncture | Pure Bleed Build | All Content | In-depth

Level 83/98 - Cluster Jewel Tree
Level 70/100 - Cluster Jewel Tree

First tree is what i suggest you should use in the end game. Much higher damage while still having tons of QoL features. Second passive tree is there if you really want to go ham on the cluster jewels and damage at cost of QoL/speed. When using any of these tree i suggest using some form of automatic frenzy charge generations, you can find them in End Game Build section.

Suggested Cluster Jewels:
Large - 12% increased Physical Damage / 8 passives
* Master of Fundamentals (Prefix)
* Battle-Hardened OR Iron Breaker (Prefix)
* Furious Assault (Suffix)

There's not much to do discuss, this is the best possible combination for a large jewel.

Medium - 12% increased Physical Damage over Time / 4-5 passives
* Wasting Affliction + any of the notables below
* Rend / Compound Injury / Circling Oblivion - highest damage notables
* Vivid Hues / Flow of Life / Disorienting Wounds - defensive notables

Medium - 10% increased Damage over Time / 4-5 passives
* Wasting Affliction
* Any of the following: Flow of Life / Brush with Death / Exposure Therapy / Brewed for Potency / Student of Decay

Physical DoT cluster has higher damage potential while generic DoT is easier to craft and more defensive oriented. Wasting Affliction is by far strongest damage notable (still) and should be prioritized. Other notables are equal in power

Small notables aren't covered because they must have very good mods to be worth your time. Standard non-cluster jewels should be stronger in almost all cases unless you need a specific notable.

Superior Alternate Quality Gems:
* Rain of Arrows (if you can corrupt it to Vaal version) - Fires 4 additional Arrows
* Chance to Bleed - Supported Skills have 20% more Added Damage
* Maim - Supported Skill have 20% increased Effect of Maim
* Unbound Ailments - Supported Skills deal 20% increased Damage with Ailments

* Vulnerability - 10% increased Effect of Curse
* Blood Rage - Buff grants 2% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge when you Hit a Unique Enemy
* Malevolence - You and nearby Allies deal 5% increased Damage with Ailments
* Blood and Sand - 20% increased Projectile Attack Damage while in Blood Stance / 20% increased Projectile Speed while in Sand Stance
* Siege Ballista (Classic) - 20% increased Projectile Speed

All alternate qualities listed above are straight up upgrades compared to what they usually give.

Rain of Arrow's quality is a long term goal. Increasing number of arrows effectively increases radius, but also number of arrows that land directly on top of enemies. This should result in overall more reliable pack clearing.

Awakaned Unbound Ailments and Deadly Ailments are better than alternate qualities from pure damage / utility perspective. Alternate quality Deadly Ailments should only be used on single target setup, you still want some hit damage for leech purposes after all. Blood Rage is interesting, you could link it with Enhance to boost frenzy on hit chance further. It has potential to be alternative way of gaining charges on bosses, although unreliable. Rest of the gems is quite obvious.

Optional Alternate Quality Gems:
* Chance to Bleed - Supported Attacks have 20% increased Bleeding Duration
* Deadly Ailments - Supported Skills have 20% increased Duration of Ailments on Enemies
* Puncture - Projectiles Pierce 2 additional Targets (QoL instead of damage)
* Ensnaring Arrow - 20% increased Area of Effect

* Steelskin - Steelskin Buff can take 10% increased amount of Damage
* Herald of Purity - Minions have 10% chance to Taunt on Hit
* Blink Arrow - +1 Cooldown Use
* Siege Ballista (Classic) - Fires 2 additional Projectiles / 20% reduced Attack Speed

Bleed duration increases are most useful when you want to use Swift Affliction on your single target skill. Puncture one is a straight QoL and nothing else, most people should stick to base quality.

Ensnaring Arrow's extra AoE makes it easier to kite enemies around and ensures longer upkeep of the debuff. Useful only for specific enemies/bosses. Steelskin is a choice between better buff or more reliable upkeep, your choice. Herald of Purity's quality is great, but from my experience sentinels are a little too squishy to make good use of it. Blink Arrow is again a small trade off, however extra cooldown is a VERY good alternative and likely worth it.

Siege Ballista's quality is extremely good, but then again Rain of Splinters exists and three projectiles is enough plus you can vaal it for Corrupted Blood immunity. Personally i really like all 5 projectiles despite not being that useful most of the time. Choice what to do is yours.

Weapon: High physical damage bow
Quiver: Life, resists and DoT multiplier
Armour: Rare body armour OR Farrul's Fur OR Replica Farrul's Fur


Helmet: Life and resists OR Assailum (end game option)
Boots: Life, resists and movement speed
Gloves: Life, resists and added phys OR Farrul's Pounce (classic build)


Belt: Ryslatha's Coil
Rings: Life, resists and added phys
Amulet: Life, resists and added phys, Turquoise/Lapis base pref, Annoint: Cleaving (BASe)


Flasks: 1 Life flasks, 4 utility flasks recommended. Flexible, use what you want.


Jewels: Life and damage on all of them, very efficient if you have at least 3 good mods.
Watcher's Eye with Malevolence mods is also great.

The core item of this build. The ideal bow needs:

* High physical damage
* High attack speed.
* +#% Damage over Time Multiplier OR #% Faster Bleeding

Everything contributes to damage and smoothness. High physical damage should prioritized. Attack Speed is also very welcome for QoL, mobility and slightly higher overall damage. Last two mods from the list also increase damage, but they rarely appear and Faster Bleeding is a Hunter influence modifier. Keep an eye on them, but don't feel bad if you don't have them.

Extremely good bow will require some investment, so you should look for cheaper options first. Lioneye's Glare or Reach of the Council are very good starting bows until you get your hands on something better.

Details how to craft it can be found in crafting section.

Rare Body Armour
High level chests can give you really high amount of life on top of other potential bonuses. Well crafted influenced body armours in particular can be amazing. Elder armour especially has some really useful mods for defence. Redeemer's influence has a mod that automates frenzy generation/upkeep on bosses.

Farrul's Fur
Optional body armour that automates frenzy generation if paired with Aspect of the Cat. Primarly used in classic build, but not limited to it. It's very expensive.

Replica Farrul's Fur
Special version of Farrul's Fur. It automates frenzy and endurance cahrges generation if paired with Aspect of the Cat. It's the best armour for Puncture based build - offensively, defensively and QoL. Original Farrul's Fur is expensive, and this one's price is even higher.

At the beginning, a rare quiver with life, resistances is all you need. Added physical damage/speed mods are also welcome. It will serve you well until end game when you'll want to craft something better.

Hunter influenced quiver for Damage over Time multiplier modifiers is something to chase for. Huge boost to damage which is hard to ignore. However it will take you some time until you get your hands on one. Details how to craft it can be found in crafting section.

Packed into same category, as you want same thing from all of them:

* Life
* Resistances
* Movement Speed (boots only)

Evasion based preferred, especially the helmet (can achieve really high evasion).
You should avoid ES based gear due to very low intelligence this build has.
On top of that, gear with ES makes end game crafting much more difficult.

Optional End Game Uniques
Farrul's Pounce are unique gloves that are a core item in Classic build. Don't use them in main version of the build that focuses on Puncture.
Assailum is an optional helmet which gives a lot of single target damage in exchange for survivability and QoL. Used in main version of the build.

Details for both can be found in End Game Build section.

Enchantments

Gloves: of Spite

Nothing else is useful, really. You can totally ignore the gloves enchantments.

Boots:
#1 - 16% increased Attack and Cast Speed if you've Killed Recently
#2 - 8% chance to Spell Dodge if you've taken Spell Damage Recently.
#3 - 10% increased Movement Speed if you haven't been Hit Recently

All of them are really good, pick based on your preferences.

Helmet: Any Puncture / Rain of Arrows enchantment

To be fair, helmet enchantment doesn't matter at all in this build. There's tons of fine options but none of them is a clear winner. Just use whatever you prefer, including secondary skills/auras.

Core item of this build.

Ryslatha's Coil is basically a 20-35% more damage multiplier on average. The more hits on an enemy the higher extra damage you get out of it on average. 50 life on stun is really useful during the map clear, as the bleedsplosions often stun enemies around. It can also be corrupted for some very good vaal implicits.

Until you buy one, just use a rare belt with life and resistances. However it's best not to plan around resistances from a rare belt in long term, it'll be harder to switch to Ryslatha's Coil.

Like majority of other gear and little bit more:

* Life
* Resistances
* Added physical damage
* ~60-70 Intelligence total

You need to get your life and resistances somewhere, and jewellery is great for that. Vermillion Ring deserves a special mention, it's an amazing option to increase your life pool. Amulet can be anything, but Lapis, Turquoise and Agate are preferred especially early on.

You'll need around 60-70 intelligence in order to use some gems. Jewellery is most likely where you'll get it from.

Amulet Annoinments:
Cleaving - Black, Amber, Sepia
Cheap and very high damage notable. It might be for axes, but the 2 bleed modifiers are global. You can also allocate "Growth and Decay" notable instead. It grants slightly less damage but makes it worth considering. Unfortunately it's more expensive than Cleaving.

Thief's Craft - Amber, Sepia, Clear
Extremely cheap early mapping node. Extra 30 intelligence for easier gearing.

Constitution - Golden, Golden, Silver
Discipline and Training - Silver, Silver, Black
If you prefer permanent life boost. Former node is better, latter is slightly worse but also cheaper

1 life flask for emergencies and 4 utility flasks. Running 2 life flasks is a possibility. The setup are flexible, use everything to your preferences.

You should be using Quicksilver flask of Adrenaline since this build doesn't have too much movement speed on it's own. Jade/Stibnite flask are a natural choice since it's easy to get decent amounts of evasion, allowing for relatively high mitigation. That's why i pick up life/evasion cluster on passive tree. Quartz flask is also one of my favorites due to synergy with acrobatics and phasing it provides.

You should have at least one bleed and one freeze/chill removal flask. Other three suffixes on flasks are up to you.

There's not much to discuss, you want any 3 out of these 6 mods on your jewels:

* 5-7% increased maximum life
* 14–16% increased Global Physical Damage
* 16–20% increased Damage with Bleeding
* 10–12% increased Damage over Time
* +3-4% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier
* 12–16% increased Bleeding Duration / Attacks have 3–5% chance to cause Bleeding

Life on the jewel is especially valuable, get it if you can. Bleeding duration might seem useless, but it's nice to have especially if you don't use cluster jewels yet and/or use Swift Affliction on your single target skill.

You also might want a single abyss jewel with chance to gain onslaught on kill if you don't have it on boost, awesome for clearing.

Getting a jewel with all 4 good mods is really hard/expensive, but finding one with 3 mods at once should be easy. Be sure to look out for other mods that can be beneficial for you:

* Attack speed mods
* 8–10% increased Damage
* 0.2–0.4% of Physical Attack Damage Leeched as Mana
* 14–18% increased Evasion Rating
* Any resistance / intelligence mods

Watcher's Eye is an expensive jewel you might want to acquire once you reach the end game maps. It's capable of granting very high amount of damage and some extra defence/QoL. Unfortunately the only good mods it has are for Malevolence aura. Watcher's Eye modifiers for Pride aura don't work with bleed at all. The mods you're interested in:

* +(18-22)% to Damage over Time Multiplier while affected by Malevolence
* Damaging Ailments you inflict deal Damage (10–15)% faster while affected by Malevolence
* Unaffected by Bleeding while affected by Malevolence
* (15–20)% increased Recovery rate of Life and Energy Shield while affected by Malevolence

Gem Progression:
Split Arrow - Pierce - Chance to Bleed
Rain of Arrows - Chance to Bleed - Maim - Vicious Projectiles

Your levelling setups for first 3 acts. Split Arrow is going to be your clear skill for a short moment. Once you hit level 12 you can finally use Rain of Arrows which you'll stick with for the rest of the game.

Rain of Arrows - Chance to Bleed - Vicious Projectiles - Deadly Ailments OR Brutality

Your clearing setup after you finish normal labyrinth and respec to bleed.
You can use Deadly Ailments or Brutality depending on your 4-link colors.

Puncture - Chance to Bleed - Deadly Ailments - Vicious Projectiles OR Brutality

Additional setup for bosses. Hit once or twice and let the enemies slowly die to bleeding. Swap Vicious Projectiles for Brutality when you reach level 38 and have a suitable 4-link.

Ensnaring Arrow - Barrage Support

Extra setup for single target. Use on immobile bosses in order triple bleeding damage from Puncture.

Vulnerability - Curses enemies to increase damage. Use on bosses, tough packs, rares etc.
Blood Rage - Frenzy generation and attack speed against normal enemies
Herald of Purity - More physical damage and Sentinels for drawing aggro. You'll need extra intelligence on gear in order to use it.

Blink Arrow : Your movement skill
Grace : Your levelling aura, grants additional evasion.
Purity of Elements : If you REALLY need resistances. Use instead of Grace if necessary.

Passive Tree Progression
Level ~10 (Act 1)
Level ~22 (Act 2)
Level ~32 (Act 3)
Level ~32 (After Respec)
Level ~38 (Act 4)
Level ~46 (Act 5)
Level ~55 (Act 6-7)
Level ~70 (Blood Acqueducts farm)
Level ~71 (After Kitava)

Bandit Reward: Oak (recommended) OR 2 passive points

Ascendancy Order: Gratuitous Violence -> Arena Challenger -> Outmatch and Outlast

Gem Rewards:
* lvl 2 - Split Arrow
* lvl 3 - Pierce (Medicine Chest side quest)
* lvl 4 - Puncture

* lvl 8 - Maim
* lvl 10 - Blink Arrow
* lvl 12 - Rain of Arrows

* lvl 18 - Vicious Projectiles
* lvl 24 - Grace, Vulnerability (buy other one from Clarissa)
* lvl 38 - Barrage Support

Additional Gem Purchases:
* lvl 4 - Chance to Bleed (Act 1)
* lvl 18 - Ensnaring Arrow, 2x Deadly Ailments (Act 2)
* lvl 38 - 2x Brutality (Act 4)

General Levelling Guidelines
First and most important to remember - when searching for an equipment, your priority on them is Life and Resistances. Links are equally as important, be sure to look out for correct socket colors. Upgrade potions regularely. This applies to all acts.

The exception to the "Life and Resistance" part is your bow. You'll have to upgrade it overtime to maintain high amount of physical damage. In case you cannot find a good rare bow, you can create one on a crafting bench inside your hideout starting from middle of act 3 when you find physical damage recipe. There is also a vendor recipe that gives similar but slightly weaker damage (sell to shopkeeper):

Bow + Blacksmith's Whetstone + magic/rare Rustic Sash

Any of these two methods should easily carry you through majority of the storyline. There are few very notable bases you should be crafting with this method:

Bone Bow (lvl 23, vendor recipe) -> Decurve Bow (lvl 38) -> Citadel Bow (lvl 58)

Starting from Decurve bow, use Whetstones on a white bow to increase it's quality.

Act by Act Guidelines: Preparing for maps:

The area with a long stream of blood is where you'll spend next 1-2 hours. It's a great place to farm experience, i recommend staying there until level 68-70. Look for gear upgrades and slowly adjust your gems to recommended final setups.

You should start looking out for 5-link body armour OR Tabula Rasa which you can farm in Blood Acqueducts. You'll probably end up buying, either the armour or the remaining Humility cards. The gem setup socketed inside should be:

Rain of Arrows - Chance To Bleed - Brutality - Vicious Projectiles - Deadly Ailments
6th link (Tabula): Puncture

You should also try to find/craft/buy a bow with higher damage and attack speed than your current one. There are two amazing and cheap unique options:

* Reach of the Council
* Lioneye's Glare

In case they're out of your price range or unavailable at all (first day of the league / SSF), just craft or buy an Imperial bow with at least 200 max physical damage. You cannot find one in acqueducts, but you can buy it from Irasha starting from level 66.

Once you're ready, go on and finish the storyline. Act 9 should be really easy. The monsters in act 10 hit quite hard so make sure to have a Jade/Stibnite flask for defence. It is a good idea to finish merciless Labyrinth before Kitava. 4000 life is enough to not get one-shot in both fights, might be a little hard to acquire tho.

If you're here, i'm assuming you have at least a 5-link AND/OR decent physical bow. Preferably both, but just one one them is enough for smooth experience.

White maps:
Passive Tree Progression (level 80)

They shouldn't be a problem at all. Most map mods are trivial, running them blue is completely viable. No real danger outside of few bosses. The best of all, the equipment you acquired before Kitava is enough to easily kill everything. You have 3 very simple goals for this map tier

* 5-linked bow with high physical damage
* Upgrade your gear that's not a bow (Life and Resistances)
* Level up as much as you can.

If you haven't bought a bow with high physical damage, then it's finally time to do so. Cost of 5-linking it should be low. Simply buying Jeweller's Touch prophecy should do the trick.

There's nothing in particular besides this. You should prepare for what's to come in the next map tier.

Yellow maps:
Passive Tree Progression (level 90)

This is where you'll spend quite a lot of time, recommended level is 80-90. This map tier isn't too risky, but some map mods might be deadly without proper defences/damage.
Gear goals for this tier:

* Ryslatha's Coil
* 6-linked body armour
* Amulet annointment
* General gear upgrades

Ryslatha's Coil is one of the most important parts of the build. Gives insane amount of effective damage and decent chunk of life. Try to get one with as much life and maximum physical roll. Unfortunately it's quite expensive due to rarity.

Acquiring 6-link armour shouldn't be too taxing. Simply buy a good base and craft it with Greed essences or chaos spam. There's also a high chance you can find a good corrupted rare with right socket colors. For convenience it's GGGRRB for single target setup.

It's worth mentioning amulet annointments. It's a relatively cheap yet very strong upgrade. Make sure your amulet is quite good before you use the oils.

Of course, with such major changes to the build you should also adjust your other gear. Never stop looking for upgrades.

Red maps:
Passive Tree Progression (level 94)

That's where mapping becomes tough. Defences has worse effectiveness, monsters can hit hard, map bosses become tanky. Your damage should carry you through most maps easily, but the bosses combined with some map mods can be too scary. The build should be fully functional at this point and all you can do now is improve it to be faster and stronger.
There are 3 following goals for map tier:

* Very high physical damage bow
* End game build
* Min-maxing gear, self-crafting equipment

The bow is one of the obvious things to upgrade. Crafting it should be only a matter of time, since you can use Harvest to make it. Couple exalts might be required for multimodding. Again, all details how to make one can be found in crafting section.

End game version of the build is something you should check out. It has optional QoL and/or damage upgrades. It also contains classic version of the build. You can find the details in section below.

Lastly, general gear upgrades. It's all min-maxing at this point. I cannot tell what combination you should run as it all depends on your current and future gear. Overall, fossil crafted gear can massively increase your damage.


After that, all you can do now is enjoy the build, kill some end game bosses and look for another build you want to play.

Considering the build is straightforward, there's not much to do creatively other than constantly upgrading the gear. However there are some improvements to make it more smooth to play and/or more damage.

Assailum Helmet

This is an optional yet very poweful helmet. Bow skill gems socketed inside this helmet cannot be used directly. They can be fired by using channeling skill Snipe, which also grants massive damage multiplier to them based on amount of channeling stages. However, great power comes also comes with big downsides. Breakdown:

Pros:
* With 4-link Puncture socketed inside, it deals up to ~125% more damage compared to standard 6-link. In majority of scenarios it's closer to 50-100% more damage, depending on luck and time spent.

Cons:
* Requires you to fully charge the "Snipe" ability to make this helmet worthwhile, roughly 2,5-3 times as long attack time.
* Longer attack time means it's more prone to RNG events and significantly more vulnerable during channeling.
* Harder to use since it's a channeled ability, instead of a single click.
* Almost no useful stats on the helmet itself.

In short, it brings a lot of damage to the table at price of survivability and QoL. I personally don't think the damage is necessary and don't recommend it as a result. However i feel obligated to mention it because it is an interesting and powerful item.

In order to use it, you must socket 4-link Puncture setup inside the helmet. Then you must channel Snipe ability which will fire the Puncture once you stop channeling. You cannot use this helmet in classic build. Suggested setup:

Puncture - Vicious Projectiles - Deadly Ailments - Brutality

Automatic Frenzy Generation
Having to recharge frenzies on bosses is definitely the most irrating part of the build. I mitigate this with 16 sec charge duration so they can last between boss phases. However you can automate this process in few ways. Which option you choose is up to you:

#1 - Farrul's Fur with Aspect of the Cat.
#2 - Redeemer influenced body armour with "10% chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Hit".
#3 - Dropping frenzy charges on passive tree and crafting +1 minimum frenzy charges on both rings and amulet.

Farrul's Fur option is the easiest, but this body armour is also very expensive. You have to craft Aspect of the Cat adds somewhere on the gear as well. Extra crit and other stats from the Aspect are fairly powerful and nice QoL as well.

Redeemer's armour is worse when it comes to charge generation, but should do the job in the long run. With enough currency it should give high amounts of life as well.

Third option is also easy to do and potentially the best one. With 3 minimum and maximum frenzy charges you always get Gladiator's 10% more physical damage buff. This method frees up body armour slot and at least 6 passive points to try out cluster jewels.

Automatic Vulnerability on Hit
Primarly for mapping. While extra clear speed shouldn't be necessary it will help in maps with awful defensive mods. There are two primary ways to get it:

#1 - Warlord influenced ring.
#2 - Ring from Delve node that gives physical themed items.
#3 - Vaal implicit on gloves.

The choice here is that there's none, sort of. You'll likely craft a Warlord's ring and be done with it. Ring from azurite mine is too unreliable and vaal implicit is too risky unless you want to use unique gloves. Methods how to make such ring can be found in crafting section.

Optional Mana Reservation
While i recommend Herald of Purity for extra safety and little extra damage, it's not the only option available. For more damage but also riskier playstyle you can use two other mana reservation skills:

You can replace Herald of Purity and/or Blood and Sand for them. Auras choices are still the same, but Pride is definitely way to go if you decide to use either of them. In order to make use of all skills you must remain in close-medium proximity to the enemies, which isn't ideal for safety reasons. You can link Flesh and Stone with Maim support to achieve highest amount of extra damage.

There's also a possibility of running TWO auras at once with Blood and Sand, which should give highest potential damage output. To do that you'll likely need Enlighten support gem and extra source of "Aura has X% reduced Mana Reservation". Easiest sources are helmet enchantment and hunter influenced amulet (Malevolence aura). With more investment you can run even more mana reservation options.


The only thing left that's interesting is classic build which you can find below. Other than that, just craft better gear.

This version of the build uses Siege Ballista for single target, combined with Farrul's Pounce gloves to deal damage similar to Puncture.

Pros:
+ Safer playstyle
+ Significantly more versatile in almost every scenario
+ Doesn't require you to stand still to deal damage
+ Combination of clearing by yourself and totem for single target doesn't feel boring

Cons:
- Still less damage than just using Puncture
- Unique heavy, requires good rares to cap resistances
- Uses Farrul's Fur so it's expensive by default

Passive Tree:
Level 94 - Classic passive tree
Level 81/96 - Classic passive tree with cluster jewels

They're not required but heavily recommended. Ironwood cluster makes totems significantly tankier and Panopticon notable is a huge effective dps increase.

What you do with remaining points is your choice. In case you need more than that, you can always change bandit reward to 2 passives.

Required Items:
Build Mechanics:
Farrul's Pounce gloves grant Crimson Dance periodically when combined with Aspect of the Cat. Standard bleed and Crimson Dance bleed don't interact with each other at all, allowing to apply both bleed types simultaneously. This means that if a build is capable of applying all 8 Crimson Dance bleed stacks, Farrul's Pounce effectively doubles the damage.

Puncture's attack speed penalty and necessity to stand still for longer periods of time make it impossible to use the gloves to their full potential. Three (or more) Siege Ballistas can easily achieve this while having relatively high damage multiplier. Everything combined allows classic build to deal similar damage to current version despite massive different in damage multiplier for bleed.

Item Explaination:
You already know why Farrul's Pounce is here. It's worth mentioning they're a unique gloves. You can try corrupting them to get Vulnerability of Hit vaal implicit.

Farrul's Fur is used to remove Cat Aspect's mana reservation cost, longer Crimson Dance phase and to generate frenzy/power charges as a bonus. There's almost no reason to not use this chest. Do not use Replica Farrul's Fur. While generally stronger, it also has negative effect on Crimson Dance uptime which impacts your single target damage.

Next is a rare helmet/boots with Aspect of the Cat. You MUST socket Less Duration support into that gear piece in order to cycle through Cat phases quicker. You can't get benefit from the gloves until you cycle through both phases after all. You can also socket Swift Affliction to further speed this up. Keep in mind that all global reductions or increases to skill effect duration also apply to Aspect of the Cat, this includes bonus from Malevolence aura.

Rain of Splinters jewel while not necessary is great to ensure hitting moving target or for extra clear. Encounters like blight, legions, abysses, breaches and delving greatly benefit from it.

Mana Issues and Solutions
3.15 patch unfortunately made this build whole lot more painful for classic build. High cost and low mana pool doesn't allow to place all ballistas before a boss fight. There are four ways to deal with this:

#1 - Keep summoning ballistas as you spam RoA / Vaal RoA (preferably with Lifetap support)
#2 - Skills Cost no Mana or Life while Focussed craft on amulet
#3 - Support Siege Ballista with Lifetap
#4 - Mana flask with Enduring prefix

First option requires some skill and management. You can also help yourself with 20-25% reduced mana cost of skill flask suffix (Catarina flask mod), this should significantly help with management. Second option is really good, as the biggest problem is setting up ballistas at the beginning of a boss fight/harvest etc. That way you almost entirely remove this problem. Third and fourth options are the lazy and suboptimal way, only use them as a last resort.


If you decide to use this build version, i hope you'll have a great time like i do. It's nearly identical to the original build version back from 3.4 for which i wrote this guide. It's my preferred playstyle for bow bleed.

Best bow bases:
* Citadel Bow - highest max phys with low AS
* Spine Bow - balanced option with good phys, AS and high crit chance
* Imperial Bow - highest AS with good max phys

Any of these bases are fine, use whichever you prefer. I personally go for Spine Bow since i make the most out of it in Classic build (including crit). Citadel bow has too low AS for my taste and Imperial has low crit and slightly less physical damage. However - any of these are fine, pick which one you like.

Key modifiers you want:
* High physical damage
* +#% Physical/Bleed Damage over Time Multiplier
* Attack speed

Budget crafting method focuses on first two, with expensive one also having extra attack speed. Budget version allows you to get to ~375 max physical in couple of exalts worth of materials and probably no attack speed. Second version is more expensive and will produce a bow around 500-550 max physical damage (depending on a bow).

Of course there exist other methods, but this one is the most reliable and cheapest to make something you'll use for all end game. Keep in mind that should you choose expensive version, it can cost you quite a lot if you're unlucky, but probably still cheaper than most bows for sale.

Before you start crafting it is recommended to increase bow quality to 28% or more. Buying a 6-link base and crafting on it will save you lots of money on fusings too.

"Budget" Elder Bow Crafting Method

Let's start with a quick look at the mods you're chasing:

* +(21–25)% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier (Hunter suffix, T2: 16-20%)
* +(16–18)% to Damage over Time Multiplier (suffix, T2: 12-15%, T3: 7-11%)

The goal would be to have both of them. Unfortunately chances of rolling both of them is small. That's about it. One more very important reminder: You can't have pierce on your quiver!

Useful non-shaper mods you might want on the quiver:
* +#% to Fire/Cold/Lightning/Chaos Resistance
* #% increased Attack Speed
* Adds X to X Physical Damage to Attacks

Alt -> Regal method should allow you to reliably get cheap damage upgrade if you wish. You will get what you want eventually, but it's going to be mediocre at best. You shouldn't expect getting more than 2 desired affixes with Alt -> Regal method.

Alt -> Regal Method

Elder/Hunter Amulet
Crafting method: Alt -> Regal -> 1 Craft/Multimod
Fossil Method: Jagged + Corroded (optional) + Pristine (optional)

Influenced mods:
* +(13–16)% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier (Elder/Hunter)
* (1.6–2)% of Life Regenerated per second (Elder/Hunter)
* (7–13)% increased Attack Speed (Elder)
* Malevolence has (20–25)% reduced Mana Reservation (Hunter)

Crafted mods:
* -9 to -8 to Total Mana Cost of Skills
* 0.7–1% of Life Regenerated per second

Both influenced mods should more or less the same. Hunter is probably slightly easier to craft.

Provides very high damage boost. Using both Jagged and Corroded will give you highest chance of rolling damage affixes and phys DoT multiplier. You'll have to be a little lucky with the life tho. You can add Pristine to increase chances of rolling life, but it will also affect chance of physical life leech mod that's not needed at all.

Marble amulet is really cool base to craft, it's always that little extra regen to mitigate degens (like Blood Rage). Not necessary by any means, only a personal preference.

Elder/Hunter Gloves
Crafting method: Alt -> Regal -> 1 Craft/Multimod
Fossil Method: Jagged + Corroded (optional) + Pristine (optional)

Influenced mods:
* +(13–16)% to Physical Damage over Time Multiplier (Elder/Hunter)
* (31–35)% increased Damage with Bleeding / Socketed Gems are Supported by Level 20 Chance To Bleed (Elder)
* +1 to Maximum Frenzy Charges (Warlord)

Crafted mods:
* You have Onslaught during Soul Gain Prevention
* (31–36)% increased Attack and Cast Speed while Focussed
* Non-Vaal Skills deal (51–60)% increased Damage during Soul Gain Prevention

Elder influence has higher potential, but Hunter has much higher probability to craft phys DoT multiplier.

Gloves have high damage potential in general. Elder gloves can grant up to 16% phys DoT multiplier, increased bleed damage AND pseudo 5-link for clearing if your damage is high enough. Any approach to fossil crafting is viable pretty much.

Rolling high life might be hard, so you'll probably end up having to mastercraft it. Similarly to amulet, you can add Pristine fossil to increase chances of rolling life at cost of lower chance to hit damage mods.

Alt -> Regal method for methodical approach or spam fossils and pray to make a decent one.

Elder Helmet
Crafting method: Alt -> Regal -> 1 Craft
Fossil Method: Jagged + Pristine

Influenced mods:
* Nearby Enemies take 9% increased Physical Damage (Elder)

Crafted mods:
* 7–8% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage
* (121–140)% increased Duration of Ailments you inflict while Focussed

9% damage increase is quite big damage increase, as it's a straight multiplier to the damage dealt. The increase is additive with Vulnerability/Maim debuffs. Because of this, helmet crafting shouldn't be prioritized over amulet/gloves.

Focus craft can be useful, but most of the time enemy will die before you take advantage of the massive duration increase.

Warlord Rings
Crafting method: Alt -> Regal -> 1 Craft/Multimod
Method: Jagged + Pristine (optional)

Influenced mods:
* Curse Enemies with Level 8 Vulnerability on Hit (Warlord)
* (18–22)% increased Damage with Bleeding / (9–10)% increased Bleeding Duration (Warlord)

Crafted mods:
* -9 to -8 to Total Mana Cost of Skills
* 17–20% increased Damage

Unlike amulet, rings don't have global physical damage prefix. If you want to craft the ring, you're probably doing it for Vulnerability on Hit mod. In this case the curse's level doesn't matter since benefit per level is minimal.

Alt -> Regal method for methodical approach or spam fossils and pray to make a decent one.

Elder/Redeemer Boots
Crafting method #1: Chaos Orb spamming
Crafting method #2: Alt -> Regal -> Multimod
Essence method: Screaming/Shrieking Essence of Greed
Fossil method: Pristine + Dense (optional)

Influenced mods:
* (7–10)% chance to gain an Endurance Charge on Kill (Elder/Redeemer)
* (9–10)% chance to Dodge Spell Damage (Elder/Redeemer)

Crafted mods:
* All 3 hybrid movement speed crafts
* You have Onslaught during Soul Gain Prevention
* Non-Vaal Skills deal (51–60)% increased Damage during Soul Gain Prevention

Elder influence is easier to roll in general.

Great defensive craft. There's no tricks to easily craft these unfortunately. I suggest chaos spam or alt -> regal if you have something specific in mind. High life, desired mod and movement speed/open prefix are the key mods. 20%+ MS can be crafted, it's enough for the build. Essences will guarantee high life roll, but might be really costly.

You can also use fossils if you only care about endurance charge on kill. It'll remove nearly all prefixes (elder), making it somewhat easy to hit movement speed and charges. Craft 70 life / movement speed mod afterwards.

Crimson Jewels
Crafting Method: Alt -> Regal
Fossil Method: Jagged + Corroded (optional) + Pristine (optional)

Jewels have a really high pool of mods, so hitting the right mods might be really hard - especially hitting life. Getting right combination of damage mods should be relatively easy with either method. If you're seeking 5-7% maximum life mod, it's probably easier and cheaper to simply buy the jewel if you have the possibility.

Crimson Jewel is the base with highest chance of rolling physical/life mods. Don't craft any other jewel base.

* Low priority: Bleed calculator update

* Proof read every single time there's a new big update.